Quite possibly next year also. I bought an Ariens 24” platinum SHO snowblower a few weeks ago. I doubt northern Illinois will see anything measurable for a year or two. The thing sure looks nice sitting in the garage though. I’m told it’s a pretty nice machine. That’s my Christmas gift to my Illinois SF members. Happy holidays!

If you are prepping it for use, be sure to use TrueFuel or some other non-ethanol fuel.

Otherwise if you put regular gas in it, and hardly ever use it, you will find the carb all fouled up "right when you need it" from the lousy ethanol.

Ask me how I know lol.

Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later...

Gonna be too cold to snow now, high of Zero degrees for the month of January

Nice machine, Ariens has made good stuff over the years.

That is a fine machine, you will be impressed with it...
If you ever get to use it.
If your neighbors piss you off it can launch the snow 50+ feet and drop it in their driveway!

When I was a kid nobody had snowblowers. My father tasked me and my brother to shovel the drive. My Dad had to go to work. The only time we could not keep up was the 27 inch snowfall in 1967. Only the affluent had snowblowers.

Your snowblower would be getting a workout here in MQT starting Wednesday morning. A foot of snow is forecasted.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later...

This^^^^^

End of year, siphon out any gas, run dry. Add a little non ethanol gas, run dry.

I’ve got a 5 gallon can of ethanol free ready to go. I always run my Toro dry. It rarely needs a second pull. That one will be going to my friend.
ZSMICHAEL, we weren’t considered affluent but my dad did buy that Toro in 1978 or 1979. Im pretty sure he split the cost with my grandfather. He had a heart attack in ‘77 and I wasn’t old enough to shovel snow yet.

My daughter has never seen snow. She was just there this past Wednesday through Sunday and was disappointed. Now she knows who to blame.



She’s wearing the pink scarf

Should've driven it over to NY last week. Heard they got 4-5 feet...which is not unusual there (in places).

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later...

Thats what I do with chainsaws, trimmer, mowers, etc

Uhhh...
Where was this wonderful machine about 2 weeks ago when I had the barricade situation and couldn't go faster than 15mps to get there?

Hopefully it does stay snow free this year!

My Ariens 2 stage snow blower only sees 100LL from the airport; never drain it as 100LL should last 10-15 years in the tank. 8 years old, so far haven't had to pick any lead balls out the spark plug.

No Seafoam or Stabil either.

quote:

ZSMICHAEL, we weren’t considered affluent but my dad did buy that Toro in 1978 or 1979. Im pretty sure he split the cost with my grandfather. He had a heart attack in ‘77 and I wasn’t old enough to shovel snow yet.

Between shoveling snow by hand and mowing grass we did ok. My Dad made us pay for everything and things went well unil Adults with Plows came along.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later...

I made that very mistake. Now I siphon out the fuel tank and run the system dry. A real PIA repairing in cold weather. I love it when I barely need my snow blower BTW.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

ZSMICHAEL, we weren’t considered affluent but my dad did buy that Toro in 1978 or 1979. Im pretty sure he split the cost with my grandfather. He had a heart attack in ‘77 and I wasn’t old enough to shovel snow yet.

Between shoveling snow by hand and mowing grass we did ok. My Dad made us pay for everything and things went well unil Adults with Plows came along.

OK here’s my true story about snowblowers growing up in New Hampshire…
My Dad worked for the largest employer in NH during the 60’s (Sanders and Asso.) and spent several months of the year traveling internationally. The first year we were there I was 4 years old so when it snowed I wasn’t much help to my Mom when the snow started flying. Needless to say she complained about having to do it herself and my Dad just blew her off saying it was only 40 feet or so…
Fast forward about a month later when he was home and we got a major snowstorm, probably a couple of feet or so. My Mom watched my Dad, who was in his early 30’s and in good shape, shovel the driveway from the comfort of our living room. I remember her making hot chocolate for us as we all watched my Dad, who would occasionally look back at us…

Anyway, when he was done he went into the garage and began backing out our Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon just in time to see a snow plow dump a bunch of packed snow back into the driveway so he couldn’t get out… My Mom thought that was hilarious and we all laughed. My Dad got out of the station wagon and proceeded to re-shovel the end of the driveway. When done, he got back into the car and drove away.

He came back later that day with a brand new snow blower hanging out the back of the Oldsmobile and that’s how we got our first snow blower!!

Back in April of 2015 I had a whole house generator installed. It started a 3 or 4 year period of no power outages in my neighborhood.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later...

Yeah, tried that for a short while on a Honda quad. Was great until the seals dried out and carb started leaking gas all over.

After rebuilding the carb, switched to avgas (aviation gasoline, long term stable unlike the garbage that you find at the local gas station) and have had zero issues since.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
...

Thanks, that made me laugh as I'm probably guilty of the same .

quote:

Pro Tip - Close the Fuel Shut-Off Valve and run the Carburetor completely dry (until it stalls out!) EVERY SINGLE TIME you use/run it!

You can thank me later... Wink

The only problem with that is it can be a bear to get the carb primed up and the thing to fire when it's freezing cold out. I don't have a blower, just a plow for my lawn tractor, but that thing hates to start cold. If the carb is dry, you can just about forget it...the battery will be dead before you get it going. I pay extra for premium ethanol-free fuel for all my lawn equipment and my boat...I've been doing that for about 10 years now and have yet to have any of the fuel system issues that I used to get annually with the corn gas. I don't even bother winterizing the boat carb any more...just change the lower unit oil and she's good to go in the spring.

OP, I'm about 2 hours east of you, and just spent an obscene amount of money on a wood stove insert for our fireplace to combat our outrageous natural gas bills from the last few years. I also put a whole bunch of time and effort over the past month splitting our entire wood pile and re-stacking it. Between that and your snowblower, the whole region is guaranteed to have a mild winter!